Archives for June 2018

I’ve found legal stuff and civics to be pretty boring stuff. However, with the advent of Mr. Trump the situations he creates have made this stuff much more interesting.

But first a shout out to Time magazine for it’s cover with the note “Diplomacy by Impulse.”

Okay, the other day I heard George Will make an argument on Bill Maher’s show that the special counsel is unconstitutional and so then would be everything he does. My conclusion was “This could be bad.” (Brilliant, I know.) So I typed a search term or two into google and got an article written by George Conway, husband of one KellyAnne. I remember Rachel mentioned this article but her take was “Who’s side is he on?” because the article seemed to defend Mueller and not the Republican view. I didn’t really understand it any further than that.

But now I do!

Conway (the husband) was responding to an article in the Wall Street Journal by Stephen Calabresi of the Federalist Society. Let’s take a moment to make sure we know who and whom Stephen and the Federalist Society is and are. According to wikipedia the Federalist Society is made up of conservative and libertarian legal beagles. They claim to be interested in interpreting the Constitution as it was originally intended. This is called origanalism and the folks who subscribe to it originalists. This group is the one, as far as I know, who have suggested all the justices that Trump is suggesting and McConnell is trying to ram through the Senate. They suggested Gorsuch. So they are a bunch of nut bag right wingers. Their heros? Anthony Scalia and Ted Cruz.

Calabresi went to Yale Law, clerked for Robert Bork and wrote speeches for Dan Quayle. He is the co-founder of the Federalist Society.

So Calabresi wrote a paper that said Mueller wasn’t constitutionally appointed and hence everything he does should be thrown out. George Will seems to think this is correct. KellyAnne Conway’s husband disagrees. In fact, he shredded Calabresi’s arguments, of which their are four (if I counted correctly):

1 – The special counsel is a Principal Officer as outlined in the Constitution and as such has to be approved by the Senate. He wasn’t. Therefore everything he does is out the window.

This gets into a lot of definitions of what the Constitution says about what a Principal Officer is and is Mueller a Principal Officer? We’ll discuss below. This references what is known in the Constitution as the Appointments Clause (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2).

2 – Mueller is a Principal Officer because no one is supervising him.

3 – There is an Independent prosecutor law, that has expired, but the argument goes that Mueller is really an independent prosecutor, operating outside of the Executive branch and that has been shown to be infringing on the powers of the president and therefore he is operating outside of the law and the Constitution and therefore everything he does is illegal.

Hum, there really were only three arguments. All of them unfounded and silly. But Conway goes through each one and shows why legally they don’t stand up. And whom does he site as supporting his claims? Why Anthony Scalia, the original originalist, the darling of the Federalist Society, and case law, and the Constitution, and laws passed by Congress, and opinions by the Supreme Court. But other than that…

Okay, here’s an overview of Mr. Conway’s arguments:

The Appointment Clause of the Constitution speaks to how Principal officers get appointed. Typically, in writing from the president and vote by the Senate, but not always. There are many cases where the president appoints when the Senate is in recess, or of judges being appointed without the president’s writing to the Senate, etc. etc. etc.

To be a Principal Officer you need to be reporting to the president or be unsupervised or have no one know what you are doing.

There is also a reference to “inferior officers” by the Constitution and they don’t go through the whole Senate thing.

Mueller according to Conway is an “inferior officer” because he reports to Rosenstein and Rosenstien has told Congress that he is aware of what Mueller is doing and has approved it.

Calabresi has tried to say that Mueller is like the prosecutors around the country and they are principal officers. Nice argument, except they aren’t. Who says so? Why Anthony Scalia. And a bunch of case law, and the Constitution, but other than that…

Then Calabresi tries to say Mueller is an Independent Prosecutor. This was a position that Congress let expire, after a certain Independent Prosecutor wandered around for years trying to find something to nail Bill Clinton on. He finally got him for six blow jobs.

To be an Independent Prosecutor you have to be outside the three branches of government. Robert Mueller isn’t.

Well, not much went on yesterday, only one scandal in the Trump world that I heard about. Not bad, an average day.

Turns out Roger Stone did meet with a Russian operative, and offered him $2,000,000.00 for dirt on Hillary Clinton.

He used the Steve Martin “How to make a million dollars and never pay taxes” defense.

It’s a straight forward defense. If and when the IRS comes knocking at your door simply say, “I forgot.”*

*btw step one of this plan is “make a million dollars.”

Okay so Roger forgot. He forgot he had a meeting with a Russian operative. That began to change yesterday when he claimed, after it was revealed by the Washington Post, that he had such a meeting he went with the Donald Trump Jr. defense of “It’s no big deal because nothing came of it” defense.

He then changed his story again. This time it was “I didn’t know he was Russian” defense.

I think that’s akin to telling the officer standing outside the window of your car that you didn’t know the speed limit was 35 (or whatever.)

Oh well. Nothing to see here. No big deal. Just another small time criminal thing. btw Let’s not forget that Roger was a rising dirty trickster in the Republican party until it was revealed that he was advertising in some mag about wanting to be involved in a three way or partner swapping deal. I think he even posted a pic of himself.

Other than that folks were amusing themselves unpacking the most recent group of lies the prez told. Many of which I covered yesterday. Boring.

It’s going to be hot this week, getting up to 91 degrees. That’s nine degrees less than what it is in that tent camp in Texas a few days ago. The tent camp where kids are being held illegally by our government. I think Ivanka ought to go down there with her cute little son for a photo op. Maybe spend a couple of days there. We could have the “ready to show you why we came 1500 miles to this country” players re-enact a few scenes of the violence they witnessed in their own countries. Nothing much a little gun to the head if you don’t do what we say. Or maybe a little Kim like action? You know either you do what we say or your wife and kids get shot or kidnapped? How about this? They could recreate the ripping kids out of her arms action that they met here? Or better yet they could lure the kid away with a promise of a shower and then send him to Chicago and tell Ivanka they don’t know where her kid is.

Ah me.

And Bill Maher used the term “feckless stunt” to describe the Kim – Trump meeting.

A few days ago I picked up the anniversary edition of Sgt. Peppers. It was over fifty years ago… The new edition is nice and clean. The music stands up. The Rolling Stones might be the biggest band etc. but the Beatles at the time of Sgt. Peppers, Rubber Soul, and Revolver have no match in the pantheon of musical history. To understand how John Lennon incorporated the new musical sounds and innovations into Sgt. Peppers with the help of George Martin and Paul is truly mind blowing. The idea of the long sustained chord that showed up at the end of the album and was used again in the beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night” and elsewhere is just one of many ideas that he popularized, promulgated, and developed from the work and understanding of others. In this case the musical avant-garde.

In exciting garden news I planted zinnias out front. I used some of my own compost to nurture the little fellas, and they are doing quite well. Photo below. Now I don’t pretend to be a good gardener. I just put stuff in the ground and curse it if it doesn’t come up. It sure looks to me like what came up are tomatoes and pumpkins, but what do I know? Maybe, that’s why the zinnia bag was so cheap.

I get CDs because I like to look at the artwork. I like to touch something. That’s what I miss about 33 LPs. You get to hold them and read the liner notes. You can’t do that with downloads. It’s not the same.

We had seen a piece on the Sunday Morning show about the album, and about Stills and Collins. I have known about Stephen Stills from the periphery of my musical knowledge. I never really knew of his work, what he did, or rather I should say I never associated his work with him. “Oh, he’s the guy in Buffalo Springfield singing, something is happening here/ What is ain’t exactly clear”? It’s like that. Yes, I knew he was in Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young but I never really got into their harmonies and songs. It was the Sunday show that stitched it all together for me. I didn’t know he had an affair with Judy Collins. Or that he wrote “Judy Blue Eyes.” and that it was a tribute to her. I didn’t know Judy Collins had battled alcoholism. They each ended up marrying other people and now that they are touring together they say that they believe that is what saved their friendship (i.e. marrying other people). Wow.

The album is what you would expect – beautiful, poignant and a welcome relief from the crushing terrible news of the every day.

Judy Collins has lost none of her ability. In the middle of the album I was marveling at her clear high voice. I don’t know what she was singing or what she was saying. It was beautiful. It makes me pine for a better time. This album is soul cleansing.

It reminds me of an old saying, “Don’t wrestle with pigs. You get covered in mud, and they love it.” But wrestle we must or lose ourselves. On my last tour to the Mayan country there was a fellow along who said that his grandparents were in Germany when Hitler was coming to power. They all knew he was crazy. But by the time they were willing to act, it was too late.

We must act before it is too late. We must reclaim our heritage, our founding principles. our what makes America America again. It will be a long mud covered slog, but I see no alternative. There is, however, from time to time, something of infinite beauty. This album is that.

This seems like it should be a catch up day for another insane week. Let’s review, in no particular order, what I think happened this week. I have to ask myself, “Was this only this week?”

1 – The president’s campaign manager went to jail.

2 – The president lied.

3 – The president’s lawyer lied.

4 – The Speaker of the House lied or hasn’t read or heard the news in the past three months.

5 – The president’s press secretary lied, insulted a reporter, and then refused to answer whether she lied.

6 – The Attorney General lied, quoted the Bible to justify his lie, and was called out for it.

7 – The Secretary of State lied, and contradicted what he was so adamant about when he was a Congressman.

8 – Shockingly, Fox News’ Sean Hannity lied and like the Secretary of State contradicted what he had said when the previous administration was in office.

9 – We as a country are now incarcerating people for coming to this country seeking asylum and we are separating them from their children. In a throw back excuse used by the Nazis our agents are telling parents the children are being taken for a shower. On the bright side, at least the kid isn’t being killed outright, just scared for life.

10 – A new set of charges was brought against Trump and the three kids active in this administration. Charges were filed by the State of New York against the Trump Foundation. A supposed not for profit entity that was really a front for campaign contributions, whether the contributors knew it or not.

11 – Ivanka Trump posted another picture of her with her kid, showing a level of cluelessness we’ve come to expect from the feckless woman. (No, I didn’t use that other word. Shows what a nice guy I am. Maybe we need a new word to describe her “wunt” combines “Woman” and “Won’t.” As in “Woman who Won’t do anything to help yoU.” Have to use the “u” so folks don’t think one forgot the apostrophe in “won’t.” And the “U” as in yoU, shows she ain’t helping you! … Why? What were you thinking? Feckless Wunt. )

12 – The Inspector General (IG) released his report on the FBI handling of the Hillary Clinton email server investigation. The president, his lawyer, and various high level ranking Republicans have seized on this to show there was no collusion by them (Trump, Republicans, I dunno Stormy Daniels?) with the Russians, and that Clinton is a criminal and should be investigated some more. There are a few problems with their assertions. They are all wrong, false, and lies. The report was about the FBI investigation into the Clinton emails, not Russian collusion. (For anyone jumping up and down screaming, “No Collusion!” based on this report please go back and read the subject line of the report. Let me explain: If I am talking about A, that proves nothing about B.) As to Clinton needing to be investigated the point made in the report was that there was nothing to charge Hillary with. That didn’t stop James Comey from dragging her name in the dirt on two separate occasions, which changed the outcome of the presidential election, which for a guy worried about integrity and transparency ya gotta wonder what was he thinking to talk about things that an uncharged person, accused of things that were found to be groundless?

Details, you want details?

The president lied about, well, everything. To be more specific, he only lied about the things he talked about. Let’s concentrate on the lies he told about Paul Manafort. Trump said Manafort worked on the campaign “for a very short time … only 49 days,” and that the special counsel “had to go back twelve years” to find something on Manafort. According to news reports Manafort worked on the campaign for one hundred days more than Trump stated, whether you consider that long or short might depend on how you view the various charges and pattern of behavior that Mr. Manafort has been engaged in. Yes, it’s been going on for at least twelve years, his money laundering and racketeering, but that is not what got him thrown in jail. What got him thrown in jail was witness tampering. He did that as recently as May. His lawyers tried to argue, “How did he know who the witnesses would be? If only there was a list of whom he shouldn’t talk to…” Sounds sort of reasonable doesn’t it? Except, except … See the charges against Manafort specify a particular company and he was talking to the people who run the company. Not only that but he tried to hide his trail by using an encrypted program. He also did a scheme, which has a name that I don’t recall at the moment, but what it involves is an email account. Manafort wrote emails but never sent them. He left them in the “Drafts” folder. Then the other person, knowing the account name and password would go in and read what was in the Drafts folder. Paulie could claim he never sent the emails! Plausible deniability! Hum, where have we heard that term before? Oh, right, with the Russians.

Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House, stated that he really hasn’t been following, or is aware, of what EPA Director Scott Pruitt has been doing. Ryan doesn’t seem to know, I guess, that Pruitt has been using his office to try and enrich himself and his wife, that he has been doing the bidding of oil and gas concerns, and not protecting our air, water, and land. In fact, he’s been busy doing the opposite. Oh gee, what about government oversight? Paulie said he’d like reporters to refer those kind of questions to the appropriate oversight committees. Do you believe that Ryan has no clue? If he has no clue, what’s he doing in Congress? Oh right, he’s leaving.

Rudi Giuliani is lying, but like the old joke goes about salesmen and lawyers, “only when his lips are moving.” He has shown an amazing misunderstanding of the law, of the job of investigators and justice. Why? The only conclusion one can come to, and he’s admitted, is that he’s trying to change public opinion about Trump, in the hopes that enough people will believe his BS or that he will sufficiently muddy the water so that people aren’t sure and that Trump can withstand a vote on impeachment if and when it comes, and he seems to believe it’s coming. He also has been busy obstructing justice, or at least hinting at it. He stated, and the president has hinted – strongly, that the president might use his power to pardon to let people who might testify against him off the hook.

Sarah “yuckabee” Sanders was asked a simple straight forward question by a reporter. It was a tough one. Basically, the reporter asked, “Are you lying now, or were you lying then?” She wasted no time in telling the reporter that she knew he could only understand simple sentences. I guess like, “Are you lying now, or were you lying then?” She didn’t answer the question.

The Attorney General (AG) and the administration has instituted a bizarre policy of separating children from their parents. The president has taken to blaming the Democrats for his policy. The AG has justified it by saying he is enforcing the law, which he is not. There is no law that says police in this country should lie or use force to take their children away from their parents. Some folks are shocked by this. I wonder why? I mean it was the little Kebler elf himself, Jeff Sessions, that gave Trump that hateful immigration policy when Trump came to Alabama. Now, it wasn’t Sessions who wrote it. No that was Stephen Miller, a much more openly hateful and disgusting person than Sessions. Miller of the “why should I pick up my own trash? That’s what we have janitors for” fame while at Duke.

Mike Pompeo, who had terrible things to say about the Iran deal when he was a Congressman, is proud of the great deal he got with Trump and Kim. Of course, the deal is a piece of paper with no limits on nukes in it, no inspections of nuke sites in North Korea, no timetables (other than “in the future”.) He went to South Korea to sell them on it. I don’t know the specific lies he will have to tell, but he’ll have to lie his butt off. Stay tuned.

Fox, Sean, and what a difference a change in administration makes. Barrack Obama was the great appeaser, pictures of Neville Chamberlain with Hitler were posted when talking about the Iran deal. But now? The president gave away so much in his meeting with Kim, and to top it off said afterwards that we’d stop our military exercises with South Korea. And yet, there hasn’t been one reference by Fox to Chamberlain and appeasement.

The charges brought against the Trump Foundation are at the state level and are civil, not criminal. The evidence for crimes has been referred to the feds. The defense here seems to be “aw shucks, we didn’t know,” and “we did nothing wrong.” Okay, let’s break this down.

First, one needs to know that a foundation like the Trump Foundation is a non profit organization. It’s a 501-C3 in the tax code, which by definition is an organization set up for charitable work (or religious, scientific, literary, or educational). These organizations are specifically prohibited from conducting a political campaign or intervening in “elections to public office.” This is by definition. There is no debate about this. Period. Full stop.

The Trump Foundation took in money from people and used it to buy things, pay bills associated with business and legal dealings, and to give money to charities just before an election to help sway the electorate. None of this is legal, by definition, under the law. Also, many of the donors are the same people who gave to Trump’s campaign. One has to ask if this was just a dodge so they didn’t have to pay taxes? The claim by New York State is that the Trump Foundation did not act like a 501-C3 and therefore isn’t. If this holds up in court then the money donated is taxable, i.e. that means the people giving the money can’t claim it as giving to charity. It also means the income is taxable, both on the individuals’ accounts (i.e. they can’t write it off as a charitable donation) and on the Trump Foundation as income – taxable income. btw Trump has not given any money to the organization since 2008. What a guy.

A quick look at the Mueller probe: Trump, collusion, etc. etc. etc.

The president strolled out of the White House the other day and lo and behold he just happened to run into Steve Douchebag or whatever his name is at Fox and Fiends. Total coincidence. (Yeah, right.) He got cornered by reporters who had the nerve to ask him questions. The president being the Donald did what he does best. He lied. Now let’s not forget that Trump and Republicans were all over the Dems if and when they didn’t give a news conference every week. Trump hasn’t had one since before his last interview with Lester Holtz. The interview where he said he fired Comey because of Russia.

Ten Sixty Six is an important year in English history. whenever I see that number I think of my dad who always remarked on the year ten sixty six, the last year England was invaded. We’ve been invaded and that’s how many days we have left of the occupation – hopefully.

Rabbit!

Yesterday was a momentous day because two things happened of importance:

The Inspector General released his report about the Hillary Clinton FBI email investigation,

and

The State of New York brought charges agains the Trump Foundation.

In summary, the FBI conducted a proper investigation and they found no cause to charge Hillary. The IG went on to say that James Comey acted improperly both by having a news conference in July about the investigation and again in late October to say he was reopening the investigation.

The State of New York has charged Trump and his three kids that work with him and the Trump Foundation as breaking the law in regards to running a non-profit organization. The state says that the foundation was used as a political tool of the Trump election, that it bought things and paid bills for Trump’s businesses and him personally, and that it used monies to buy items from other non-profits. Little or no money actually went to helping the people and organizations it was meant to help. In fact Trump himself hadn’t put any money of his own into it for years. Much of this by the way was known and reported by the New York Times months and months ago. Now it’s official and the charges go deeper than the Times was able to discern.

Oh yeah, and last week Trump talked to Kim and by the very act of him talking to Kim we are no longer under the threat of nuclear attack from North Korea. Right.

The whole Comey FBI probe into Hillary thing always bothered me. I couldn’t figure it out, until last night, when I was hit with it between the eyes by Rachel. Thank-you Rachel Maddow. The problem I had was that Comey thought he had to say something to the public about Clinton, while keeping quiet about a much more potentially serious investigation into her opponent. Comey claimed he had to be transparent on Clinton, but said he had to follow procedure on the Trump investigation into collusion with Russia. He’s been accused of tipping the election to Trump. He’s said he sure hopes he didn’t influence the election, but you have to be pretty naive to think he didn’t. It was Maddow who spelled it out. Comey was influenced by the right wing media that whipped up a frenzy with their “Lock Her Up” mantra.

Comey didn’t want to appear to be helping Clinton, but he didn’t mind sullying her reputation under the guise, (excuse?) , of transparency. All the while he knew of a much more disturbing investigation with much more evidence to suggest that the Trump campaign was colluding with a foreign power. For all his wanting to stay out of politics, he assumed Clinton was going to win, so he in fact did make his decisions based on a political outcome that he believed would happen.

Okay so that’s the Clinton email FBI investigation. But the takeaway is that the right wing and the Donald Trump camp are attacking the Justice Department and the FBI again over the Russia probe. Why? Because it worked! It worked on the Clinton email, why not do it for the Russia probe?

While that is going on, another lawsuit is brought against Trump. I gotta say this guy attracts lawsuits like pigpen attracts dirt. Much of this was known months ago in the New York Times reporting, which started out because Trump said he was raising all this money for veterans and that he himself was giving a million dollars to the cause. The NYT reporter asked a simple question of himself, “Who got the money?” Trump claimed to have raised six million dollars for veterans. Yet, the NYT reporter called dozens of veteran groups and asked if they were the ones who got money from Trump. None of them had. In fact it wasn’t until months after the claim by Trump that he had given money that he actually wrote a check, and only then because he was cornered by the reporting from the Times.

The stunning thing about the Trump Foundation and Trump’s use of the funds, by him and his campaign was the lack of any attempt to hide their criminality. In the charging document is a copy of a note from then Trump campaign chairman Corey Lewandowski directing the Foundation to cut checks on the Saturday before the Iowa Caucus. There is the evidence that Trump used the Foundation funds to buy a picture of himself, and sports paraphernalia, and to pay his legal bill related to his business – all illegal, all done in plain sight.

When Trump finally wrote a check (he hadn’t given any of his own money since 2008) he railed against the negative reports about him in relation to this. Why hadn’t they pointed out what a good thing he had done? Well, see Donnie, you hadn’t done sh*t to help any charity up to that point in time, and to be honest after you wrote the check to your own foundation there was no evidence that you had given any money to charity.

The States attorney wants Trump and his family members: Ivanka, Don Jr, and Eric to repay the money in double, to never be allowed to have a not for profit foundation again in the State of New York, and to not serve on any such non-profit board. She has also referred Federal charges to the IRS and other appropriate agencies. This is all based on the facts, not the hype, not the right wing attacks on our judicial system.

The amount of brazen criminality in this family, in this administration, and in the Republican party is stunning. Elizabeth Warren was pointing out last night how agencies of the Federal government have been stood on their head by this administration. The EPA no longer protects our environment but rather is a agency for polluters. The Education Department no longer looks out for the welfare of our public school system. The agency charged with protecting citizens from gouging by loan organizations is now those organizations accomplice.

Yesterday I read how the head of Yellowstone, a forty two year veteran, has been shoved out of his job. In fact the whole executive level of the National Park Service is under attack. Why? Why indeed.

It is surprising to me how quickly this country has fallen into such criminality. Will we be able to right the ship? How long will it take? Or will we succumb to this ever growing gang of thugs, criminals and ne’er do wells?